My comments on the this passage:
My interviews with a half-dozen Arab foreign ministers and deputy foreign ministers in recent years have confirmed that US diplomats routinely blame the "Jewish lobby" as a way of diverting blame away from the US government.
It is scarcely a news flash that the US State Department is heavily Arabist in outlook; all they are doing here is making convenient excuses and confirming the Arab outlook that they share with their clients. The Arabs just can't understand why the US supports Israel, when the Arabs have the oil. But then the Arabs just can't understand how decisions get made in a democracy, either.
This cynical excuse has contributed to the frightening rise in recent years of anti-Jewish attitudes in the Arab world. The consequences of US policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be tragic not just for Palestinians and other Arabs, who are the immediate victims of the diplomatic support and largess of US aid to Israel, but ultimately for Israel as well...
Oh, please. I think the Arabs are quite capable of forming attitudes on their own, without being fed them from Washington. Arab anti-Jewish attitudes go back centuries, and in this century they picked up all the Nazi and Soviet attitudes before they ever started listening to the US State Dept. They just can't stand not being able to destroy Israel. It is really quite that simple. As Bernard Lewis says, being beaten by the Western Colonial Powers was bad enough, but being beaten by a gang of despicable Jews is insupportable.
It has long been in Washington's interest to maintain a militarily powerful and belligerent Israel dependent on the United States. Real peace could undermine such a relationship. The United States has therefore pursued a policy that attempts to bring greater stability to the region while falling short of real peace. Washington wants a Middle East where Israel can serve a proxy role in projecting US military and economic interests. This symbiosis requires suppressing challenges to American-Israeli hegemony within the region.
Was that what Clinton was doing, wasting all his political capital on trying to broker a Mideast peace deal? This is such hooey. What would actually be in Washington's interest is a Middle East that was stable and modernizing, that sent out trade goods instead of terrorists, where we could buy oil without funding the other side in the War on Terror.
Now, if you can't have peace, it is useful to have at least one ally who you can be sure isn't double-dealing you and giving your information to Al Qaeda. Who would you nominate for the role, Saudi Arabia? BTW, it helps if that ally can field a competent regional fighting force. |
